communique

CATCH A LITTLE HIP HOP HISTORY LESSON IN THE LATEST ISSUE OF WAXPOETIC MAG

(Source: Brand Autopsy)
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DJ LEJO ADDS NEW MEANING TO SCRATCHIN'

This one's been around for a minute, but is a great example of how global Hop Hop culture has become. This one comes to us by way of Russia...check it out...

iPOD + iTUNES AD + MI SWING ES TROPICAL

Apple does it again. Steve Jobs never ceases to amaze us, this time with the Latin tinge flavor of Nickodemus & Quantic feat. Tempo. Pa'lante mi hermano!

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE IPHONE

Apple Inc's Phil Schiller shows John Blackstone the many features of the iPhone. Apple's latest product will go on sale this June. 

Hip Hop Honors Preview On VH1

To the Top: A Hip-Hop How-to

By Alex Williams, NEW YORK TIMES
TEN days ago Kevin Liles, the executive vice president of the Warner Music Group and one of the most powerful African-Americans in the record business, dropped by a television studio in Midtown Manhattan to visit Lil' Kim, one of his company's artists. She was taping a show for Black Entertainment Television, and he needed to tie up some loose ends before she headed off to prison for a year and a day to fulfill her sentence for perjury.

The two conferred quickly before she shooed him away, reminding him that she didn't have a lot of time to spare. "I can't just be telling you I love you all the time," she called after him as he made his way to the door.

Mr. Liles, wearing a Zegna blue blazer and baggy Phat Farm jeans, then strolled from the studio entrance toward his chauffeur-driven black BMW 750, where he was accosted by a nervous teenager who handed him a compact disc of home-recorded raps.

"It happens all the time," Mr. Liles said moments later, sinking into the car's gray leather seats. "That's every day." He told the boy he'd give it a listen, even though what he truly wanted to say was that maybe the kid should consider accounting instead.

While other hip-hop impresarios use their clout and credentials to start clothing lines, movie production divisions and vodka brands, Mr. Liles has his sights on a different goal: hip-hop self-help guru. And with his first book, "Make It Happen: The Hip-Hop Generation Guide to Success" (Atria, 2005), written with Samantha Marshall, a business journalist, he hopes to show readers that there are more routes to success than a record contract.

FOR THE REST OF THIS STORY VISIT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/fashion/sundaystyles/25LILES.html

Apple, Motorola & Cingular Drop It Like It's Hot

Screwballs

Forget the Bronx or Compton -- the hottest sounds in hip-hop are coming straight outta Houston
By Gavin Edwards

Mike Jones, Houston's most successful rapper right now, can pinpoint the moment -- just a few months ago -- when he knew that his hometown scene had spread beyond city limits. "I started doing shows in Alaska," he says.

In Alaska, "screwed and chopped" would be instructions to a lumberjack or maybe a short-order cook. But in Houston, it's the bedrock of a unique brand of hip-hop, a more soulful Dirty South sound that's now going national, with albums from Jones and Slim Thug reaching the Billboard Top Five. A screwed-and-chopped remix slows down the beats of a familiar track until they're thunderclaps and the vocals until they're the rumble of a brontosaurus herd. Its woozy, sedated sound is the perfect backdrop for slowly cruising around a sprawling, overheated city.

"It's not enough to say that Houston is hip-hop's Seattle," says Todd Moscowitz, president of Asylum Records, which in recent months has signed up literally dozens of artists in Houston, many in partnership with the local label Swishahouse, home to Jones, remixer Michael "5000" Watts and Houston's token white rapper, DJ Paul Wall. "The music culture is so deep. It's a whole lifestyle -- the car culture, the way they dress, the jewelry in the mouth -- that's part of what captivates people."

FOR THE REST OF THIS STORY VISIT:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/7539604/?pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single2&rnd=1124731967210&has-player=true

Interview: Wiley

By Jim and Tom Breihan

Before Dizzee Rascal became the face of grime, he was a member of the Roll Deep Crew, a rotating group of rappers, DJs, and producers from East London. Roll Deep is led by the rapper/producer Wiley, Dizzee's former mentor and a man Pitchfork's Jess Harvell called, "grime's bedrock." Wiley isn't going to drop any jaws as an MC, but his production style is a thing of beauty-- Timbaland on a paranoid caffeine buzz, huge wobbly bass almost drowning out jittery nervous drums. In 2002 and 2003, Wiley released a series of 12-inches before dropping Treddin' on Thin Ice, his criminally underrated solo album, last year. A few months ago, In at the Deep End, the first Roll Deep album, came out in the UK, and the group came to New York last week for a show at the Knitting Factory, where their contemporary Kano would play the next night.

This interview took place outside New York club the Knitting Factory with car horns and sirens in the background and some drunk dude interjecting every so often, but Wiley still found time to talk about rave violence, new jack swing, and his attempt to break America.

FOR THE REST OF THIS STORY VISIT:
http://pitchforkmedia.com/interviews/w/wiley-05/

Reebok Loves Hip-Hop

By Verbal Walker

Reebok and Adidas have joined forces to fight the evil forces of Nike but in the meanwhile Reebok will continue with their “I Am What I Am” campaign. While it is no secret that Reebok wants to tap into the hip-hop market, the shoe company now wants to attack the hip hop market on a global level.

Miri Ben-Ari, the hip-hop violinist, and the unconventional English hip-hop artist, The Streets, have joined forces with Reebok to continue its global onslaught. The “I Am What I Am” campaign has targeted the younger demographic by using music icons and athletes and has included the likes of Nelly, Allen Iverson, Jay Z, Stevie Williams, Curt Schilling, Yao Ming and others.

FOR THE REST OF THIS STORY VISIT:
http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.3501